Origination: The Geographies of Brands and Branding

Chapter SevenTerritorial Development

Introduction

Amongst the actors involved in seeking to originate brands and branding through the construction of geographical associations in branded goods and services are those concerned with the development of particular territories at a range of different scales from the supranational to the community. While their aims and aspirations in addressing the question of ‘what kind of territorial development and for whom?’ may differ (Pike et al. 2006), such individuals and institutions are implicated in differing ways and to varying degrees in the spatial circuits of meaning and value in branded commodities. Commercially successful brands strongly geographically associated with particular places are often identified as assets, lauded and promoted by actors as envoys and markers of capability and reputation. Conversely, less successful, weaker or failing brands connected to a place can be denoted as liabilities, ignored and written out of the story told of what the place is about and what the actors in it are able to do.

Territorial development actors face similar challenges to other producers, circulators, consumers and regulators in trying to cohere and stabilize meaning and value in specific brands and their branding in particular spatial and temporal market settings. They have to confront the added complications and difficulties of attempting to work with other brand and branding actors to extract benefits for a territorially defined area ...